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It isn’t.
But since when is anything fine these days…
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Blood and a broken heel.
The only evidence confirming that something very, very wrong happened.
In a matter of eight long hours since the cops showed up—ten, since I last saw her—what started out as a missing persons case handled by local law enforcement, has now escalated to Amber Alerts and national news coverage and blood and hair samples and interviews on top of interviews on top of interviews.
It’s official: Isobel Montgomery, a seventeen year old female from Pennsylvania, has been abducted from a hotel conference center in Florida.
Detective Rosen hangs up his phone and turns to us. “Blood’s not a match.”
Mom lets out a sob of relief and Dad’s demanding what now.
I’m sitting against the wall facing the beds, with my knees curled to my chest, chin resting on my folded arms. I blink, staring straight ahead, as police and hotel staff and men in suits come and go out of the room.
“But it is her heel,” I hear myself mumble, my gaze and voice far off. Been like that since I woke up to Mom shaking me, throwing one question after another at me:
“Where is she?”
“Where did you last see her?”
“Your sister, Jeremy. Your sister. Where did she go?”
Unlike the traces of blood found by the dogs, we don’t need to test DNA to confirm the heel is from her shoe. The second they showed it to us—discovered not very deep into the hedge maze—I knew. Mom knew…
She bought Izzy the shoes after all.
The room plummets into silence at the sound of my voice, save for Mom’s sniffling.
I feel everyone turning their gaze to me, and it distantly occurs to me that the strangled feeling I’d normally get when being at the center of attention, is nowhere to be found.
I feel…nothing.
Questions start getting thrown at me—mostly from Mom—the same ones I’ve already been asked and answered at least a dozen times since they woke me up, like she’s hoping I’ll suddenly say, “Psyche! She’s right outside. We were just having fun.”
“That man…are you sure it wasn’t him?” Mom asks, her voice breaking.
The second I learned my sister was nowhere to be found, I thought of him.
The man with the white hair. The cane. The too-sharp blue eyes.
The man who called me little dove.
I told them everything—about our run-in in the hall, and then how he cornered me in the bathroom.
Dad had demanded why I didn’t say anything earlier, when he took me upstairs, and all I could do was stare at him.
Why didn’t I?
Because I talked myself out of it.
Chalked it up to my imagination.
Now, I say nothing at all. What else is there left to say?
